Problem

The information on the stock of medications and medical devices handled at the central level is updated infrequently, inaccurately and incompletely (it is not clear which medications are available in hospitals and in what quantity). This sometimes makes it difficult for patients to receive free treatment, and for the state to effectively procure and distribute goods.
It should be emphasized that public procurement is carried out at the expense of the state budget according to the predetermined list of medications and medical devices. This is preceded by extensive work of groups of experts and specialists involved in the development of nomenclatures, terms of reference (“technical assignments”), etc. This process involves experts with relevant specialist knowledge – doctors and other healthcare professionals, as well as representatives of NGOs and patient organizations in whose activities private interests may prevail.
In addition, the relevant experts issue their recommendations and comments during the approval of procurement terms of reference (“technical assignments”), which should be taken into account by the State Enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine when formulating the final terms of reference, which, given the potential presence of private interest of the relevant experts, may negatively affect the objectivity of the approval of the relevant requirements.
As for decentralized (regional) procurement, there are different approaches of different customers to the procurement of the same type of medicinal products, which may lead to corruption risks both at the stage of tender documentation development and at the stages of bidding and contract execution.
Issues of interaction between pharmaceutical companies and healthcare professionals remain insufficiently regulated; proper regulation of these interactions would make it impossible to abuse the prescription of medicines to patients.
In addition to the procurement procedures themselves, an important aspect of preventing corruption risks in this field is the independence of the supervisory board of the state enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine. It should be emphasized that the state enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine falls under the criterion of critical enterprises, so the formation of a supervisory board is mandatory.